POEM
早发白帝城Zǎo Fā Bái Dì ChéngLeaving White Emperor City at Dawn
- Dynasty
- Tang
- Author
- 李白 Lǐ Bái (Li Bai)
- Genre
- 七言绝句
- Lines
- 4
- Era
- c. 8th century
THE POEM — LINE BY LINE
Tap a line for word-by-word gloss.
#1朝辞白帝彩云间Zhāo cí bái dì cǎi yún jiānAt dawn I take leave of White Emperor City among the colored clouds,word by word
#2千里江陵一日还Qiān lǐ jiāng líng yī rì huánand reach Jiangling, a thousand li away, in a single day.word by word
千qiānthousand里lǐChinese mile (about 500 m)江jiāngriver (江陵: Jiangling, a Yangtze city)陵língJiangling (江陵: Jiangling)一yīone日rìday还huánreturn#3两岸猿声啼不住Liǎng àn yuán shēng tí bù zhùOn both banks the apes cry without stopping,word by word
#4轻舟已过万重山Qīng zhōu yǐ guò wàn chóng shānwhile my light boat has already slipped past ten thousand layers of mountains.word by word
POEM IN PLAIN ENGLISH
A plain-English guide, not a literary translationAt dawn I take leave of White Emperor City, high among the colored clouds, and reach Jiangling — a thousand li downstream — in a single day. On both banks the apes keep crying, and before their cries can die away my light boat has already slipped past ten thousand layers of mountains. The poem was written on Li Bai's journey home after being pardoned from exile, and its speed is his joy: the boat does not travel, it flies. This is a plain-English guide, not a literary translation.
BACKGROUND & IMAGERY
In 759 Li Bai was banished to remote Yelang; on the way there he was pardoned, and this poem records his return down the Yangtze through the Three Gorges. White Emperor City (白帝城) sits on a cliff above the river, Jiangling far downstream — the 'thousand li in one day' is Li Bai's own exhilarating exaggeration, and the last line's rushing boat has made the poem a byword for light-speed travel (the idiom 一日千里 comes from this cluster of images). Some editions read the third line as 猿声啼不尽; the text here follows the received version (通行本).
TRUST & SOURCES
- Reviewed by
- AI-assisted editorial review
- Last reviewed
- 2026-08-15
Sources
- 《唐诗三百首》通行本（中华书局点校本，题作《下江陵》）
- 本站飞花令语料 feihualing.db（poem 397010） — 文本以通行本为准，库本仅行级参考（库本与通行本一致）；库中另存异文'两岸猿声啼不尽'，不予采用
- Original English paraphrase & gloss — 本站原创学习释义，非文学译本（plain-English guide, not a literary translation）
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